


Bit by Bit

by The_IPRE



Series: Elsewhere [1]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson, Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Genre: Elsewhere University AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 01:06:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14727053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_IPRE/pseuds/The_IPRE
Summary: Jared doesn't know how to believe.





	Bit by Bit

Jay’s freshman year, his roommate was Taken.

(Being taken and being Taken were two very, very different things at Elsewhere University. The first was a friend or a parent or a sibling stealing you away for a short while, and it was rarely threatening. Unless you considered family dinners dangerous, that is, and you would not necessarily be wrong to assume that.

The latter is always dangerous.

Being Taken (always with a capital T, always said with a furtive look in the eyes, always able to quiet a room even when whispered) was a very different situation. The fae Took what they wanted without asking permission, and while you might return after writing them a few flattering songs or healing their “pet” or sacrificing more than you ever thought you could, anyone who returned from being Taken was never the same.)

Jay knew none of this as a freshman and so chalked everything unusual up to finals week fuckery, because this was _college_ . It was normal for people to stay up too late, for strange things to happen, for people to go missing and come back as someone else with hollow backs and twigs for fingers and bones that should not have been there. It was just _college_ , and he was sure that that was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the inexplicable changes to his roommate.

He couldn’t quite come up with this perfectly reasonable explanation, not yet, but he was sure it was out there. He told himself that he just didn’t care enough to look. He didn’t admit that he didn’t push because he knew that the school of reason this explanation would fit into wasn’t the same as his own.

He told himself that this type of thing happened in colleges everywhere, even when some deep, hidden, and visceral part of him was sure that it didn’t.

The thing about Jay was that he had no belief. No belief in himself, no belief in the rules of the fae, no belief in the worth of anything on this bitch of an earth. This drew the eyes of the fae, because RAs could only protect him for so long with stories of school traditions and nicknames and charms. And then, when he was left with defenses down and guard dropped and no one left to stand in the way of pointed claws, he would be a very valuable prize for someone. He was amusing, truly, but it was impossible to understand what made him click.

The fae realm ran on belief and this seeped into Elsewhere, and the college became a place where plastic beads could be currency and a voice could be exchanged for conviction and a memory could pay for anything, as long as its holder was convinced of its value.

The fae had lived for longer than anything in the human realm, and they knew how things worked. They knew the way words could be twisted to their advantage, they knew the smell of desperation and the sight of fear and sounds of rage, they understood belief and how to twist it to their will. 

They didn’t understand how this boy could believe in nothing, could hold nothing dear, could be protected by iron and salt and a nickname that he didn’t even believe in.

Faeries didn't like not understanding things.

Somehow, Jay didn't feel – or didn’t process – the weight of the many, many eyes that were constantly trained on him, and he wrote it all off as normal college shenanigans. That kid in his psych class with the shoulders slumped so far that hands touched the floor was just tired, the coffee creamer and whipped cream vodka that was left outside every night was just eaten by stray cats, and his roommate muttering in latin and perching on top of every high surface was just the other boy cracking under the stress of finals. 

All normal college things.

(The word “just” was always a dangerous one. Nothing was _just_ the way it seemed, and like the oceans of the faerie realm, there were layers and layers and layers to everything, going down and down and down until everything was dark and nothing was simple and the world played by different rules.)

After three days of the imposter (although Jay only really noticed on the last day), the RA knew that they would have to make plans to retrieve the roommate and oust The Roommate, as the changeling had taken to calling itself. It would mutter something about definitions and relations and bonds if asked about the name, but no one ever did. These things – definitions and relations and bonds, all complex things that went down and down and down – were things that Jay didn't care about as a finals-stressed freshman.

(Later, they would become more valuable than anything else in his cramped world. That would come much later, but even then it would still be too soon. It was always too soon to make bargains and bets and deals, but that never stopped the students of Elsewhere University.)

And so the RA, who had been at Elsewhere for many years and would undoubtedly be there for many more, put on their iron and salt and rowan, pulling their false name and countless years and red clothing around them as a shield. Jay was always one to roll his eyes at these school superstitions being taken so seriously, and this time was no different.

This whole thing was nothing to him, and he didn't, wouldn’t, couldn’t see why people were kicking up such a big fuss. Everyone cracked a little under finals stress, and even if he pulled at his iron bracelets more often or kept a ramen flavor packet in his pocket as of late or made offerings because The Roommate didn't, he blamed it on needing any good luck he could get. 

(The human mind’s refusal to acknowledge things that were beyond their sphere of understanding was baffling to the fae, and yet year after year after year, they went unnoticed by a third of the students. Jay was no different, and pushed and pushed and pushed away all the thoughts and sights and sounds he didn’t understand, because he always told himself he had bigger things to be dealing with.

The fae were the biggest things on the campus – although saying they should be dealt with was dangerous – and Jay would learn this soon enough.)

Jay did all of these things for some distant concept of luck, but he still didn’t quite understand luck, not yet. He didn't know the bargains and bets and deals that it took to swing luck even a degree, and he wouldn't be able to make them anyway. A man who has nothing to lose is nothing to bargain with for the fae, not when that man wants to remain out in the human realm – for reasons that remain beyond their comprehension. 

No, Jay’s time for deals would come later.

At Elsewhere University, most people went after their missing. Kindness had to be repaid, of course, and unless you said that your help was freely given a friend could become under your thumb as easily as all the students were held under what passed for the fingers of the fae.

Jay made no such effort. He had made no effort to befriend his roommate, he had made no effort to befriend The Roommate, and he had made no effort towards reminding his roommate about wearing iron on the day he was Taken. He was detached as detached could be, and so when The Roommate was taken back and when his roommate was brought back, he laughed and shrugged and went back to poking at his finals with a figurative ten foot pole.

He didn't notice the hollow in the other boy’s eyes, or the way his ears had been forced into points with shimmering stitches holding them in place, or the way the late night bells of the Wild Hunt left Jay's roommate in pieces.

He had no emotional connection, he did not care about who he shared a dorm with (roommate or Roommate), and so Jay went about his life with a nasty smile, head down, and peripheral vision firmly ignored. 

He soon learned that he could only ignore the shapes and eyes and hands in the corners of his eyes for so long.

That story would come later, but it was inevitable that it would happen. 

After all, no one can remain lucky without thought forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an AU of an AU, come talk to me about it at @the-IPRE on tumblr.


End file.
